Premier says VLocity trains to arrive by spring

Victorian premier Jacinta Allan says VLocity trains will arrive on Warrnambool line by Aug/Sep

Transcript

00:00Stage 2 is currently well underway and stage 2 is what will the completion of

00:05stage 2 is what will deliver the brand new velocity trains to the Warrnambool

00:10community. What we've needed to do to deliver the the new velocity trains is

00:15undertake significant track upgrades but also to at each of the level crossings

00:20along the corridor make sure that they had the technology installed to and the

00:24infrastructure installed to be compatible with with the new velocity

00:28trains and I'll just get my facts and figures right there are 53 level

00:33crossings that needed to be upgraded along the the Warrnambool line to be

00:37compatible with the new velocity trains and I'm advised that 17 of those have

00:43been completed and what is about to be undertaken is a big winter blitz during

00:49the winter months that there will be some disruptions to the train services

00:53the line will be closed for a period of time that will see the completion of the

00:57upgrades to the remaining level crossings it also gives us the

01:00opportunity to tie in with the works that are happening at the Geelong end of

01:04the track with the upgrade between South Geelong and Warn Ponds and the the big

01:08program of works there to improve which will see an improvement also for the

01:13Warrnambool line in terms of the reliability and the efficiency for

01:16Warrnambool line trains to travel through that part of the network my

01:20advice is that that winter blitz will be completed in around August September of

01:24this year and that's when we can expect to see after that the velocities running

01:28into Warrnambool for the very first time and this is something that I know for a

01:33number of years the Warrnambool community has been wanting to see an

01:35improvement to their train services and we've been able to progressively upgrade

01:40the train services bringing on a fourth daily service then a fifth daily service

01:44upgrading the track putting in a passing loop so that we can run those extra

01:49trains and now doing the required track work along the corridor with the level

01:54crossing upgrades to bring the brand new velocity trains to Warrnambool